NAM2016: Six Months In

It has been a very long day. Of course, since I'm a glutton for punishment, yesterday I spent cleaning out Jordan's room and put away all of Jordan's summer clothes that just don't fit plus his Gotcha Day outfit and the toys and bottle he came with. Yes, the bottle he came to us with. The one that is in almost every single one of our China pictures, plus probably most of the photos from the first months home. Yes, we both cried when I put it in the box (but for different reasons). So really, I did not prepare well emotionally (or physically) to get through today.

And if you had told me I would be writing about our six month anniversary of the day we became a family of three from a hospital room, I probably wouldn't have believed you. Although we've known this testing would be coming and expected it, it's one thing to anticipate and push it aside and another completely to be sitting in an uncomfortable chair with interruptions for chest x-rays and vitals and meds. Derek is actually in the comfortable chair. I'm on the couch that pulls out into a bed, but it isn't quite long enough to sit on comfortably. Our room is actually really nice--so I shouldn't complain about anything except for my height not quite working to my advantage for once.

If you've been following our Jet Landing Facebook page then you'll know that Jordan had a stent placed during his heart catheterization, fixing one of his issues. However, the other is still to be decided. Our cardiologist was very firm that he will need surgery, but they (the team of cardio surgeons) will be discussing whether to do it sooner than later. Derek and I personally would prefer sooner while he is still little and won't remember it as much, plus could hopefully bounce back quicker than if he was older. Of course, when they say later, we don't know if they mean next summer or when he's six or sixteen. The risks of waiting would be possibly allowing permanent irreparable damage to muscles, veins, and arteries in the heart but on the other hand, but they just need to evaluate if there is a benefit to waiting.

Hospital Selfie! Happy 6 Months!
 Hi Pom Pom!

We are tired. There is simply no other way to phrase it other than physically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally just exhausted. Derek says intellectually doesn't count, but I do, since Jack Sparrow also agrees. Jordan is tired, probably with all of those things too. It really been a long six months of doctors and emergency rooms and conferences and phone calls and medication updates and changes and plain old education about his heterotaxy (which Google tells me is not a word, but it is.)

We're so, so happy to have this procedure behind us. Hopefully anytime it is needed in the future it will just be a routine event (and yes, the stent will have to grow with him, so it will be needed in the future). Our questions for the most part have been answered. We're still waiting on the surgical team to determine the next course of action but at least there will be a game plan in place instead of all the balls up in the air.

But...

We signed up for this. We knew, starting with the submission of our LOI (Letter of Intent--whoa...flashback to March of this past year) that this would be a possibility. Adoption is scary. There are no guarantees. It's a leap of faith that, quite honestly, you just have to close your eyes, take a hugely deep breath, and jump. We didn't know anything about how this would end up--and we still don't.

Yet it's still so totally worth it. Never would trade it, ever. Jordan has brought more joy to our lives and those around him than we could have imagined. The number of people who have stopped us to pray for us and for him--even doctors and nurses--still astounds me. He is silly,sassy, wild, talkative, extroverted, and loves an audience. (Opposites surely do attract; or maybe this is God's sense of humor again.)

Thank you for those of you who helped us bring him home. Thank you for those of you who have supported us so far. We're only six months in, and sometimes that can seem like forever to some people...but in reality it's still just a fraction of his life that he's spent with us--and a very tumultuous six months it's been for him. And although he can't yet tell us, we hope he also agrees that our family is pretty awesome with the three of us.

Perhaps you've tuned in to the blog this month because it's National Adoption Month or to see more in depth about how our trip to China went. And maybe you're tired of hearing about our trip or our adoption. That's fine! Sometimes, we got tired of reliving it. (Is that bad to admit? I'm not sure.) But the one thing I hope that's made a difference to you, whether you are just tuning in now or you've been with us since our very first post when we were just two people recording our travels, is the impact you can have on the life of a child. Derek and I have adopted one child. Just one. We hope to support dozens more. And, welcome more into our home someday. And there are families who adopt three, six, eight, or even ten children. There are good families who foster kids who have no other options but to move on from their biological parents--whether temporarily or permanently. There are children in Syria, in the Middle East, scattered across Europe in general who have no home, no clothes, and no food. There are women--girls--who find out they're pregnant and don't know what to do and how or if to proceed with the pregnancy because they have no other options.

These are not exaggerations. These are facts. The important thing to remember is that you can do something. It doesn't have to be traveling to China. It doesn't have to be opening your home to foster care or adopting a child. It doesn't have to be permanent! It can be lunch at your local public school with some of the kids who need a role model. It can be donating some diapers to your local women's pregnancy crisis center. It can even be financially supporting a family whom you know is adopting--or has adopted in the past! But please, please, do something. I promise, you can.